A few years ago I was new to blogging and knew nothing about its promotion. Although I had more experience in being a CEO rather than SEO, I had to learn more about SEO algorithms and key tools to improve blog traffic.
Nevertheless, when you treat your blog as a business, you need to learn fast in order to get the results. So I’ve started to analyze other successful blogs, their traffic results, and SEO tools that helped to achieve high rankings.
So, here is the collection of the most effective and cheap SEO tools for bloggers that will help you to move your blogging journey to the next level. All of the resources are free to try and easy to use.
Affordable SEO Tools You Can Start Using For Free
Let’s start with the best tools for SEO audit:
1. Semrush
Semrush was one of the very first and best tools I’ve started to use as a blogger. It changed my intuition-based approach into a data-based one, and that was the moment I saw the whole picture of how my blog looked online and why it didn’t grow. And that is the time when the whole game changed.
What is Semrush?
Semrush is a content marketing SaaS that was created in 2008 by a small team of SEO experts. Today their service is used by millions of users including big companies and small bloggers who strive to improve their online visibility. Semrush offers over 40 marketing tools for SEO, social media, and marketing analysis. And you can try Semrush for free
How can Semrush help you as a blogger?
Semrush helps to analyze website traffic, keyword rankings, and key competitors, and find new SEO opportunities. It is an everything-in-one-place software and one of the best SEO ranking tools recommended to use if your goal is to increase the number of blog visitors from Google.
Some of the features I like the most:
- Website audit – it gives a website overview highlighting the blog crawl ability and showing key technical issues that require attention. Website audit helps to improve your blog health score and Google positions. It is a great SEO report tool and the first step you should start with.
- Domain overview – it shows the website authority score, organic search traffic, the number of backlinks and domains referring to the website, top organic keywords, and top competitors.
- Organic Research – it shows the top-ranking keywords as well as new and lost website keywords. This information helps to understand which articles perform better and which of them need to be updated.
- Keyword Magic Tool – it is a must-use tool for every blogger showing the real region-based data people search online and helping you to create the content that people need. No need to say that it is very hard to get high traffic without keyword analysis.
They also have tools for link building, on-page optimization, and content marketing strategy. And if you plan to use social media for SEO you can also try Semrush as it has a social media management tool with auto-posting and ad management features.
Most big companies use Semrush because it saves time spent on SEO and can substitute the efforts of the whole digital marketing department. One of the great examples is the Norwegian company Codex Advokat which managed to achieve a 600% increase in its website traffic in just 14 months with the help of the Semrush tool. Such an impressive result!
If you are new to SEO, Semrush has its Academy that provides online classes on digital marketing and helps to understand how the Semrush tool works and can benefit your website traffic.
Semrush Pricing
Their pricing plans start at $119.95/month with a 7-day free trial. Semrush is really worth its money if you are planning to grow your blog as a business and monetize it faster.
2. GTmetrix – website speed analysis
Website speed has a direct impact on SEO positions and shouldn’t be ignored. GTmetrix is extremely if you need to get a website performance audit. I love it because it is well-structured and presents a very detailed report. And it is a free tool!
Unlike the report provided by Google page speed insight, GTmetrix allows you to get a more detailed audit, understand the technical issues and get in-depth recommendations for what needs to be improved.
Some of the GTmetrix performance metrics:
- The time spent for the first content to appear – 0.9s or less is recommended
- Speed index – 1.3s or less is recommended
- The time spent for the largest element to appear – 1.2s or less is recommended
- The time spent for the content to become interactive – 2.5s or less is recommended
- Total blocking time – 150ms or less is recommended
- Layout shif time – 0.1 or less is recommended
3. Google Page Speed Insights
It is a free page speed analysis tool from Google showing two main parameters – Speed and Optimization scores for Mobile and Desktop versions of the website.
Once you see the results of the analysis this tool provides recommendations on what to improve.
4. Seoprofiler
This is another game-changing SEO tool. Since I am not very good at SEO it saved my time and made my blogging journey easier.
So much value in just one place. It shows all the backlinks of your competitors, keywords ideas, backlink opportunities for your blog, and regular keyword monitoring. Additionally, you will get weekly SEO audits of your blog and do not have to spend time monitoring everything. I highly recommend giving it a try!
What is Seoprofiler
Seoprifiler is an SEO optimization software providing a number of tools for working with website traffic. It gives an opportunity to analyze your website traffic and find new opportunities from competitors’ analysis.
Seoprofiler features
- Website audit statistics – it shows technical issues your website have
- Ranking statistics – it shows ranking positions and keywords
- Backlink statistics – it shows the number of backlinks and the link influence score
- Keywords suggestions tools – it gives an opportunity to analyze keywords as well as get ideas on your competitors’ keywords
Seoprofiler pricing
Their pricing starts at $69.95/month with a 7-day free trial. You will have enough time to try the tool and understand if it works for you. The subscription can be canceled at any time.
5. MozBar Chrome extension
It is a very helpful SEO tool from MOZ that gives an opportunity to check such metrics as DA (Domain Authority) and PA (Page Authority) for any website. Additionally, it finds and highlights all the links on the webpage differentiating them by type –
- Followed
- No-Followed
- External
- Internal
Traffic analysis SEO tools
6. Google Analytics
I should mention this tool because it is a must-have for everyone starting a blog. Everything you need to know about your traffic, target audience and its behavior, marketing campaign effectiveness, ads, etc., etc., etc. can be found in Google Analytics.
Try Google Analytics7. SimilarWeb
It is a very cool tool giving an opportunity to analyze monthly traffic as well as traffic sources. I love it because it has a browser extension and traffic can easily be checked.
Try SimilarWebKeywords analysis tools
8. Keywords Everywhere
It is another great keyword analysis tool. It can be added to your browser as an extension and will always give you information on search statistics.
What I love about this service is that there is no need to go anywhere to find the information on keywords. Just add an extension and get the data on search volume, cost per click, and competition. Magic!
Try Keywords Everywhere9. Keyword tool
It gives an opportunity to analyze the keywords’ search volume for different search engines.
Try Keywords Keyword10. Soolve
It gives an opportunity to find the keywords popular on different platforms, such as Amazon, Bing, Youtube. It’s very convenient and easy to use for any SEO beginner.
Try Soolve11. Ubersuggest
It is another keyword-searching tool you shouldn’t miss. It was developed by Neil Patel and got popular among SEO starters for its simplicity of use and the value it provides.
Try UbersuggestBest Blog SEO Tools
SEO tools for content writing
12. Grammarly
Clear and engaging grammar is one of the key requirements for website content influencing Google rankings. Grammarly is the number one grammar and spelling-checking tool most blogger use.
What is Grammarly?
Grammarly is an AI SEO tool that helps to create engaging and effective content. It was founded in 2009 and today the service is used by 30 million people around the world.
Your personal digital writing assistant
Most bloggers order proofreading services before publishing an article. Grammarly saves the time and money spent by proofreading experts because it provides advanced recommendations on language style and corrections that need to be made. Working with the website content make sure to have at least a 90 performance score according to Grammarly before publishing the article.
Grammarly features
- Spelling and grammar checking
- Tone adjustment
- Word choice
- Sentence clarity
- Inclusive language
- Advanced recommendations
- Plagiarism checker
Grammarly pricing
You can start using Grammarly for FREE! Its free version includes great features for creating high-quality content.
Is Grammarly Premium worth it?
Definitely! You need to make use of Grammarly Premium features especially if you are a blogger or a writer who regularly works with the content.
It will cost you around $10-15 to order a proofreading service for one article. And you can easily calculate your monthly budget if you write, say, eight articles a month. As far as you can see using Grammarly is far more cheaper and save time.
13. Portent Title Generator
If you are not sure how to write the title of an article and need to get some ideas on how to name your next blog post this tool can help you with it. Portent is a title generator that provides catchy title ideas using keywords.
How it works:
- Go to Portent
- Enter your article keywords
- Get article title ideas
14. The Title length and Title ideas
Here you can check on different headline structures as well as check if your title length is good enough for SEO.
15. Copyscape
Check if the content is original and plagiarism-free. It is a very useful tool for bloggers who accept guest articles from contributors or order content from content writers.
Creativity and Design Tools
16. Namelix – blog name generator
If you need to generate a blog name or a new business name this tool will be just perfect. Just enter a keyword associated with your business and you will get a list of names together with logos ideas and domains.
17. Freebie Supply
A great variety of free templates can help with any design you want. It will be useful to those who are familiar with Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, or Adobe XD.
18. Canva
Canva is one of the best tools for making a social media designs, digital products, and blog post pictures. Free, user-friendly, and with tons of creative templates. Bloggers actively use Canva for making cool gifs and video content for Pinterest and other social media.
Most of the features are free to use. Canva Premium gives access to more stylish and unique templates, fonts, and video elements.
Free photo stocks
19. StockSnap
Lots of creative images are free for personal and commercial use.
20. Unsplash
This is my favorite free photo stock. The images can be filtered according to styles, categories, themes. All the photos are free for personal and commercial use.
21. Pexels
It is one of the most popular websites among bloggers. It contains a great variety of creative photos. All content can be used for free.
Sum Up
All of the above SEO tools are great to improve your website content quality and ranking on Google. And they are free to try! So, don’t forget to bookmark this page and use all of these free SEO instruments.
And good luck on our blogging journey!
